\chapter{\textcolor{Gray}{{\LARGE Classical Representation}} \\ \textcolor{title}{It's All Greek to Me}} \begin{inquote} {\footnotesize \textcolor{Gray} ``I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.} \\ \end{inquote}% \vspace{-0.2 in} \textcolor{title}{\textsf Werner Heisenberg} \\ \vspace{-0.2 in} \begin{inquote} {\footnotesize \textcolor{Gray} ``Because of the fact that mathematical truths are necessary truths, no actual 'information,' in the technical sense, passes to the discoverer. All the information was there all the time. It was just a matter of putting things together and 'seeing' the answer!''} \\ \end{inquote}% \vspace{-0.2 in} \textcolor{title}{Roger Penrose} \\ \noindent testmonday Total. Darkness. In the morning, the bright Mediterranean sun, by evening...the end of their world. In the morning, warm breezes, and by the evening?...a black rain of soot. Where there had been magnificent architecture, rolling earthquakes would have produced rubble while eerie lightening punctuated the unnatural daytime darkness. Almost eight centuries later Homer sang, ``On an island called Crete--in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair, rich land [there were] --ninety cities.'' Ninety thriving cities one day, and instant devastation the next. Sure, the occasional eclipse would have been disturbing to the 17th century BC peoples. But this. This spontaneous destruction was a gross insult by the Earth--and where we began. %%========= example of marg ================================== \marg{ \fig{aegeanmapR.jpg}{ An aerial shot of the Aegean basin showing the Greek Peloponnese to the left, the Island of Crete (ancient Minoa) horizontally at the bottom, the Ionian coast (modern western Turkey) to the right...and the remains of the Santorini caldera directly north of Crete. The little near-complete circle island.% \label{cap:aegean}} } %%========= example of marg ================================== Around $-1650$\footnote{As a physicist, I can only think of time as an arithmetic quantity. Accordingly, and unconventionally, ``BC'' times will be represented as negative integers.} the usually peaceful Mediterranean announced the birth of western civilization with literally the loudest sound ever heard by humans: a huge volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, about 100 miles north of modern day Crete. All that's left of Santorini now is the caldera, looking from the air like a bulls-eye, a target pointing to the beginnings of Greece. This volcano had a long history of bad behavior, but this ``Minoan eruption'' was particularly cataclysmic. The initial column of dust and ash would have risen tens of miles into the bright sky and been visible from the Crete's north-coast capital city of Knossos. Its effects reached the Middle East with volcanic debris found over throughout Turkey and northern Egypt. All-important Cretan beaches and port cities were engulfed by the tidal waves and the inch-thick blanket of ash permanently destroyed its lush cyprus covering. Of course, crops and livestock were destroyed as were untold numbers of people. The first modern European culture ceased to thrive almost immediately afterwards. But, not just because of that one bad day. No. Archeological and mythological clues hint that their eventual undoing was at the hands of a neighbor after they had been softened up by Nature. By the time of the eruption, Crete--or ``Minoa'' as we call its storied predecessor--was a refined culture of master architects, mariners, traders, an apparently relaxed and leisure-loving people. They probably originated through migrations around the 4th millennium B.C., including from Egypt. They evolved into a Mediterranean powerhouse, competing with the Phoenicians for maritime trade from Syria to modern day Spain. Minoans were lettered. Following the Babylonians and Egyptians, they evolved a written language--in fact, three of them. There was an early Egyptian-like hieroglyphic version, but two newer linear, syllabic scripts of characters dubbed ``Linear A'' and ``Linear B.'' The former has resisted all decoding, while the latter was cracked only in the 1950's and is classified now as an ingredient of ancient Greek writing. No coherent Minoan literature survives, rather we have evidence of an accountant's language, reserved for bookkeeping and inventory. The most direct source of information we have about Minoa comes from the vicinity of the remains of a spectacular Palace of Minos at Knossos. At its peak, this college-campus-sized structure housed 1300 rooms in buildings five stories high with mural-covered walls, indoor plumbing, and a sophisticated network of waterworks. Unearthed jewelry and pottery show a civilization of boldly dressed men and women playing, singing, and competing. The Palace of Minos was the largest on the island and Knossos was probably the capitol, constructed, modified, rebuilt after fire many times. Another archeological ``discovery'' was what was missing: no fortifications or walls. As islanders, they must have been confident of their security, which is consistent with the almost complete lack of military artifacts nor warlike subjects in their wall painting. Rather, depictions were of style and leisure activities, famously the coed sport of `bull jumping.'' Deciphering the Minoans' fate comes from following the trail of their language: Linear B was found on the mainland doing the same perfunctory tasks as on the island, but hundreds of years later. Mainland people were a brutal bunch and the so the incorporation of Minoan writing suggests more than casual acquaintance with the island. In all likelihood, after the volcano, the weakened Minoans were conquered by these ferocious neighbors and absorbed around $-1400$. And then? They vanished, living on only in Greek mythology\sidenote{In fact there was an ancient, doomed population adjacent to the volcano, which many believe is the source of Plato's lost civilization of Atlantis.}. It's satisfying to imagine that maybe they served as a civilizing influence on their relatively crude northern invaders. In any case, the early Greek civilization of western lore was a blending of both the feisty and the cultured. These were a Bronze-age people, without stores of weapons; the beginnings of our western scientific ancestry--the smart side of our family. The legendary disagreeable Greek nature comes from the other side: that side of the family you'd try to hide from your friends. The Mycenaean side. \sidenote{ Every kid knows the story of Icarus and flying too close to the sun. Many Greek myths point back to very ancient times, adding a fantastical twist to real places. The Cretan King Minos (yes, that's where ``Minoa'' comes from) was the presiding warden of the ``labyrinth,'' the maze in which he kept his unfaithful wife's man-bull offspring, the Minotaur. According to this famous story, Daedalus, the architect of the maze, was imprisoned in the labyrinth with his son, Icarus. Their escape by constructing wings and flying away is the source of the story of Icarus' disobedience in flying too close to the sun which melted his wing's waxy components. } %\renewcommand{\chapdir}{ItsAllGreek}\input{ItsAllGreek/Homer}% %\renewcommand{\chapdir}{ItsAllGreek}\input{ItsAllGreek/Thales}% %\renewcommand{\chapdir}{ChapterTemplate}\input{ChapterTemplate/SectionTemplate2}% %% An example of a body-quotation %%========= example of quote ================================== %\begin{quote} %\textsf{\footnotesize {} %``A simple example would be the proposition %that there are mountains on the other side of the moon. No rocket %has yet enabled me to check this, but I know it to be decidable by %observation. Therefore this proposition is verifiable in principle %and is accordingly significant. On the other hand with such metaphysics %as \char`\"{}the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, %evolution and progress\char`\"{} {[}F.H. Bradley] one cannot conceive %of an observation which would determine whether the Absolute did or %did not enter into evolution; the utterance has no literal significance.'' %}{\footnotesize \par} %\end{quote} %%========= example of quote ================================== %%========= example of sidenote ================================== %\sidenote{ %There is a particularly poignant story of a slightly older and more established mathematician named Gottlob Frege who was similarly pursuing a logical derivation of mathematics. Russell's discovery of the paradox ruined Frege's life work. In reply to Russell's respectful letter informing him of the difficulty, Frege wrote back, ``Your discovery of the contradiction has surprised me beyond words, and I should like to say, left me thunderstruck because it has rocked the ground on which I meant to build arithmetic...I must give some further thought to the matter.'' Later, Russell took pains to highlight Frege's many contributions to mathematics, but the older man never was able to rebuild his system in light of the Russell Paradox. %} %%========= example of sidenote ================================== % %% An example of a box %%========= example of box ================================== %\begin{figure*} %\begin{boxer}{Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)} %First paragraph of box. %\noindent More words. %\end{boxer} %\end{figure*} %%========= example of box ================================== %% An example of another box %%========= example of another box ================================== %\begin{table*}[!t] %\label{box:mathematics}\vspace{0.5cm} %\begin{boxer}{Geometry, late 1800's} %The late 19th century was %\indent In 1853 in a career-making move, %\end{boxer} %\end{table*} %%========= example of another box ================================== %% An example of a marginal figure %%========= example of marg ================================== %\marg{ %\fig{LadiesInBlue.jpg}{ %Bertrand Russell shortly after being released from his five month prison sentence for his vocal oppossion to Britain's participation in WWI.% %\label{cap:russell_40}} %} %%========= example of marg ==================================